Wednesday, April 9, 2014

In a first look, perhaps
you would not notice anything other than sheets of water in this photo which
appeared in The Hindu ~ on a closer look, one might observe something more –
but still may not be able to tell what this is all about…….. !!

A frequent traveller via Vijayawada
cannot miss Prakasam barrage – over river Krishna.
KrishnaRiver is one of the longest rivers in
central-southern India,
about 1,400 kilometres (870 mi). Krishna river originates at Mahabaleswar near
the Jor village in the extreme north of Wai Taluka, Satara District,
Maharashtra in the west and meets the Bay of Bengal
at Hamasaladeevi in Andhra Pradesh, on
the east coast. It flows through the state of Karnataka before entering Andhra
Pradesh. The delta of this river is one of the most fertile regions in India and was
the home to ancient Satavahana and Ikshvaku Sun Dynasty kings. Vijayawada and Sangli are the important
cities on this fast and furious river which at times causes devastation when it
flows fully during monsoon.

Miles away, nearer Odissa,
lies Srikakulam, formerly called Gulshanabad (Garden city) during Muslim rule
and was headquarters of Muslim fauzdars. It was renamed as Chicacole by
Britishcolonial rulers; after independence, it was renamed Srikakulam. This
region of Andhra Pradesh was part of Kalinga region at first, and later a part
of Gajapati kingdom
of Odisha up to the
medieval period. In 1759 the Fauzdhari
ruling was ended and British ruling started, Srikakulam became part of Ganjam district in the
undivided Madras
province. In 1947 after Indian independence, many including Potti Sriramulu
fought for separate AndhraState and Srikakulam became
a district of the State. Perhaps I stumbled
upon details of Srikakulam,when I should have been reading
and writing on the other Srikakulam, which is a much smaller village on the banks
of river Krishna in Ghantasala (Mandal)
of Krishna district.

Kalamkari ( కలంకారి) is a type of
hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile, produced in parts of India and in Iran. The word is derived from the
Persian or Farsi words kalam (pen) and kari (craftmanship), meaning drawing
with a pen. Machilipatnam is famous for its kalamkari craft. Understand that there
are two distinctive styles of kalamkari art in India - one, the Srikalahasti style
and the other, the Machilipatnam style of art. In Srikalahasti style of Kalamkari, the "kalam"
or pen is used for free hand drawing of the subject and filling in the colours,
is entirely hand worked.

This has a religious identity - scrolls, temple
hangings, chariot banners and the like, depicted deities and scenes taken from
the great Hindu epics profound this where
only natural dyes are used involving painstaking steps. In modern times the term is also used to
refer, incorrectly, to the making of any cotton fabric patterned through the
medium of vegetable dyes by free-hand painting and block-printing, produced in
many different regions of India.

The cotton fabric gets its glossiness by
immersing it for an hour in a mixture of Myrobalans and cow milk. Contours and
reasons are then drawn with a point in bamboo soaked in a mixture of jagri
fermented and water; one by one these are applied, then the vegetable dyes.
After applying each color on to the motif, the Kalamkari fabric is washed after
drying. Thus, each fabric can undergo up to 20 washes. Various effects are
obtained by using cow dung, seeds, plants and crushed flowers to obtain natural
dye. Now read this report from The Hindu
…….

Kalamkari workers are making a
beeline for the banks of the Krishna at Srikakulam in Krishna
district, as the water here is crystal clear without effluents, to wash
textiles. They undertake the 40-km journey from their hometown Pedana every day
during the summer to reach Srikakulam as the canals near their home have dried.
The fabrics are laid in flowing water to get the perfect colour. “We believe
the sacred Krishna flows for us. In summer, it
helps us in two ways: promises ample water and brings out the perfect
concentration of colour,” Kalamkari workers G Nagaraju and B. Prasad toldThe
Hindu. Their team washes textiles that are meant for export to many European
countries.

As written this Srikakulam is a Village
located in Ghantasala Mandal in diviseema region of Krishna District, Andhra
Pradesh. This place is known for the Srikakulandhra Vishnu temple built in the
honor of a king named Andhra Vishnu who reigned before Satavahanas.